Thursday, 13 March 2014

The BrewBurger

The bastards beat me to it.

I had this plan, you see, to try and make the most beery
burger the world had ever seen. A cheeky little tie-in to plug my new book –
Beer and Food, coming soon! Pre-order it now! – that would challenge me to use
as much beer as possible and still get a delicious burger.

Despite my DIPA-level of bitterness, I still wanted to eat
it. I had to eat it, in fact. I couldn’t not
eat it. I mean, look at it. It’s a magnificent masterpiece of meat. And I say
this as someone who spends most of my internet browsing (the non-incognito hours
anyway) looking at photos of burgers.

The burger stacks 5am Saint candied bacon, Punk IPA onions
and a Paradox BBQ sauce along with comte cheese and Honest’s brilliant beef
patty. And it’s excellent. The use of beer is subtle, adding depth of flavour
instead of just being a gimmick. The meat is always good at Honest and the bun
is so soft and sweet. It comes with a Bourbon Baby, BrewDog’s barrel-aged
scotch ale which tastes a bit like JD and coke, in a good way – sweet vanilla,
molasses, wood, spice.

Having had the BrewBurger, I’m still inspired to make the
ultimate beer-infused version because I reckon I can a lot more beer into a
burger and still make it taste awesome. For example, in my cupboard at home
right now I have hot sauce made with IPA, I’ve got Black IPA ketchup, rauchbier
BBQ sauce and three types of beer mustard. I’ve made mayonnaise with beer. A
beer-battered onion ring, perhaps. Beer cheese. Beer onions is a gimme. Beer chilli, jalapenos or pickles. Beer in the bread dough. Some
hop salt on the fries. Some crushed malt instead of sesame seeds. Anyway...

If you like burgers and beers then try the BrewBurger while
you can. In the meantime, I’m going to have to come up with a better idea for
this book launch… Beer pizza, perhaps? The beer bakery?

Beer infused chicken nuggets. The beeryiest chicken nugget in the beeryiest batter. Perfect for hipsters to old for Mcdonalds but too scruffy and without the knife and fork skills for actual restaurants. Dirty!

How how about a burger infused beer? Infuse a beer with beef so it tastes like cold bovril? Sounds godamned awesome to me. You could even have bits of cheese floating in it.